I slept, but not the greatest as Chugchilán is pretty high in elevation. I got up and got ready. Soon after I got up I heard the air horn of the bus letting everyone know that it was there. As I headed toward the bus, Mama Hilda had made bags of popcorn for us to take as a snack on the bus. She is such a sweet old, indigenous lady.
We all got on the bus and headed toward Quilatoa. The thing about Quilatoa, not only is it a beautiful area, but there is a crater there. That´s the big deal. I didn´t think we were going to be able to see it because during the whole bus ride, it was cloudy.
We arrived in Quilatoa, walked through the quiet village and went to the crater. When we got to the edge I could hardly believe it. There wasn´t one cloud in the crater. I was a magnificient view. A blue lake in the middle of this steep walled crater in the middle of nowhere. It was great. We took some pictures and headed down to the lake. Once at the bottom, we were greeted by indigenous man who promptly offered to rent kayaks to us. We told him that we were planning on doing to the hike Chugchilán from there. There insisted that instead of hiking back out of the crater and then along the rim to get to the trail, we paddle across the lake and head up the other side of the crater to the lake.
I thought it sounded like a great idea, so we did. The had a raft that everybody paddled in, and Erin and I took a two man kayak. Bummer thing was, he ran out of paddles so I used this paddles carved out of a log. It probably weighed close to 15 or 20 lbs. I didn´t get far and I was struggling. It was part of the fun though. More fun included having to tow the raft. He didn´t want us going to far ahead so he tied us to the raft. We ended up pulling them.
We arrived on the other side and $2 later, we were free. Tamara didn´t go on the hike becuase she wasn´t feeling well. She decided to go back with the man, walk out of the crater and take the bus back to Chugchilán.
There wasn´t anything in that crater except the one man with the rafts and a potatoe field on where we where hiking. I´m not sure why anyone would put potatoes in a crater miles away from anything, but someone did.
We started up the side of the crater, through the field of potatoes and the girls were getting a little scared. I was loving it, but they thought there was actually going to be a trail. There was a little one, from whoever was growing the spuds, but it was very steep and they didn´t like it.
We got to the top and what do you know, we couldn´t see anything because the clouds were so thick. Just as we started down, however, it was like someone knew we were coming and moved them out of the way for us. We could see for miles and more importantly, where we were going.
We hiked down along a line of eucaliptus trees and through some farms. We came to the small village of Guayaba. Some little kids ran over to us and wanted us to take their picture. After we took them, one said, "paga, paga" which means pay, pay. We didn´t, and we moved along. We stopped to eat some lunch around the corner in a shady area and took a break.
Thirty minutes or so later, and we came to a cayon that we had to cross. This was really cool becuase there was this tiny little trail that went into the cayon. Down, down, down we went along the windy trail along the side of the cayon. We crossed a little stream and then back up. Up, up, up and about a hour later and we arrived back in Chugchilán. It was a great hike of about eight hours and probably no more than six miles. We all had a great time thought and didn´t get attacked by any dogs or anything.
A got cleaned and rested up and hung out before dinner. I met a cool guy and a work partner of his in the common room. His went by "Dups", with parents from Sri Lanka, he was from St. Johns, New Foundland and lived lived in Montreal. He was there for work. The woman he was working for, well, I don´t remember her name. But she was Dutch and worked for the school in Chugchilán.
They over heard me talking about how I had to leave the next morning to get to the highway to meet with Natura and Michael and we were heading north or Quito the next day to a little place called Mindo. They said that instead of taking the bus, they would drive me to the highway in the morning as they had to pickup some supplies in Ambato anyway.
I gladdly accepted the offer, if not for the sake of being able to get two more hours of sleep, to have someone to talk to. They said, "you can go with us, but you can´t be out at the Jeep any later than 06:15." I didn´t mind.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
17 Dec, Quilatoa Loop
On the 17th, four women who I met at the hostal in Baños and I went to do what they call the Quilatoa Loop. This is a 200km loop that can be driven in a couple days with the bus. It has amazing views from the windows of the bus. Around every corner there is something new. I found it surprising that a bus would even drive on a road like that, but they do.
From Baños on the way to Latacunga, where you get off the Pan American Highway to go to Quilatoa I thought the bus driver must have been out of his mind. Out of his mind, maybe, surprising, not a bit. Riding the buses are one of the craziest things I´ve done here so far. But, that´s another story.
I will say however, that I think the buses was trying to drag race another bus, through Ambato. I have never seen two buses neck in neck on a narrow two way street battling for first, until now. I was somewhere around the back of the bus, but I was able to see some on coming traffic, a car followed by a dump truck. Good thing we were in the right lane. However, this is a pretty normal thing here in Ecuador.
We made it, alive, to Latacunga. From the bus, we had to walk a couple blocks to the bus terminal. Becuase Ecuadorians love to not let you know about safety issues, for instance, a power truck working on power lines, a man standing on a latter, no cones, nobody watching him, I almost walked right under him. Who knows what could have happend. Perhaps he could have dropped a tool on me or something.
Anyway, on our way from the bus to the terminal, there were no cones set up and no plastic down to let people know not to walk under an overhang which was being painted, one girl, Erin, walked right under it and got quite a bit of white paint all over her. Bummer.
Anyway, we got on the next bus from Latacunga to Quilatoa. The bus just went up and up and up. The mountains are so fascinating around that area. Then, we pasted throught the village of Zambahua. After being on the bus for two hour, we arrived in Quilatoa. From there, we were supposed to wait for another bus. Just then, a man who was driving a "camioneta" showed up and offered us a ride for $3 each. I say "camioneta" because real camionetas have orange lisence plates like every other public transportation,otherwise they´re white plates. This guy was nice and just offering us a ride, but why not charge, after all, the was headed where we were headed anyway.
Marina, the irish girl and I sat in the back of the truck the 45 mins. the Chugchilán, another village, where we were staying. We pulled up to the hostal, Mama Hilda´s, where Tarmara, a lady from Portland, had stayed before. You could tell it was high in elevation because it was a little hard to breath even just walking around.
When we arrived, we hung out a bit. Chugchilán was having some kind of festival as many villages just celebrate for one reason or another. A while later, dinner was served and we sat around and chatted after that.
We had to get up to be on the bus at 06:00 to take the bus back to Quilatoa for our next days hike so we all went to bed pretty early.
From Baños on the way to Latacunga, where you get off the Pan American Highway to go to Quilatoa I thought the bus driver must have been out of his mind. Out of his mind, maybe, surprising, not a bit. Riding the buses are one of the craziest things I´ve done here so far. But, that´s another story.
I will say however, that I think the buses was trying to drag race another bus, through Ambato. I have never seen two buses neck in neck on a narrow two way street battling for first, until now. I was somewhere around the back of the bus, but I was able to see some on coming traffic, a car followed by a dump truck. Good thing we were in the right lane. However, this is a pretty normal thing here in Ecuador.
We made it, alive, to Latacunga. From the bus, we had to walk a couple blocks to the bus terminal. Becuase Ecuadorians love to not let you know about safety issues, for instance, a power truck working on power lines, a man standing on a latter, no cones, nobody watching him, I almost walked right under him. Who knows what could have happend. Perhaps he could have dropped a tool on me or something.
Anyway, on our way from the bus to the terminal, there were no cones set up and no plastic down to let people know not to walk under an overhang which was being painted, one girl, Erin, walked right under it and got quite a bit of white paint all over her. Bummer.
Anyway, we got on the next bus from Latacunga to Quilatoa. The bus just went up and up and up. The mountains are so fascinating around that area. Then, we pasted throught the village of Zambahua. After being on the bus for two hour, we arrived in Quilatoa. From there, we were supposed to wait for another bus. Just then, a man who was driving a "camioneta" showed up and offered us a ride for $3 each. I say "camioneta" because real camionetas have orange lisence plates like every other public transportation,otherwise they´re white plates. This guy was nice and just offering us a ride, but why not charge, after all, the was headed where we were headed anyway.
Marina, the irish girl and I sat in the back of the truck the 45 mins. the Chugchilán, another village, where we were staying. We pulled up to the hostal, Mama Hilda´s, where Tarmara, a lady from Portland, had stayed before. You could tell it was high in elevation because it was a little hard to breath even just walking around.
When we arrived, we hung out a bit. Chugchilán was having some kind of festival as many villages just celebrate for one reason or another. A while later, dinner was served and we sat around and chatted after that.
We had to get up to be on the bus at 06:00 to take the bus back to Quilatoa for our next days hike so we all went to bed pretty early.
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